Browsing by Subject "Language and culture."

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Open Access
American cultural values as seen through a film and their application to a Turkish classroom
(1999) Bunk, Aylin
Although EFL classrooms are very suitable places to examine cultural aspects of a language, this part of classroom learning is widely neglected because of the attention given to language skills. In many classrooms, students’ exposure to the target culture is far from being systematic; it can be somewhat random. In addition, since the language is taught in the learners' own environment, learners may lack opportunities to be exposed to the target culture. As a result, they may have little or no awareness of the target culture and are likely to experience difficulties in adjustment if they enter a target culture environment. Therefore, language teachers should expose students to cross-cultural contexts that will help them to understand the target culture better and clarify misconceptions; this should also enhance crosscultural communication. On the basis of these views, this study investigated underlying cultural differences between Turkish and American people by examining their perceptions of themes and issues raised in an American film. It also examined which of these insights might be useful in a cross-cultural communication class in Turkey, and for what reasons. Data were collected from two different groups of participants through questionnaires and discussions after watching the film Grand Canyon. One of the groups included six Turkish teachers of English who worked in different universities in Turkey. The other one was a group of five Americans who were teachers at Bilkent University. Both groups viewed the film separately and noted the major themes and issues that they observed. After viewing, the groups discussed the film. Theme discussions were audiotaped, transcribed, and analyzed through discourse analysis techniques. The data gathered from the transcriptions were categorized for the most part according to American values as presented by Robert Kohls (1984). The results of the study indicated that there are differences between the discussions of Turkish and the American groups, and these can be related to underlying values concerning fate, equality, individualism, work orientation, directness and openness in human and family relationships, materialism, public behavior, efficiency in service, and power. The findings lay ground work for an examination of cultural differences in an EFL class, especially for students who plan to further their study in the target culture
Open Access
Representation of different cultures in IBDP language B literary texts
(2015) Maden, Sinem
English is one of the languages taught in International Baccalaureate Diploma Programme as a Language B course. English includes examples of culture within itself as it is the most widespread language in the world (Nault, 2006). International Baccalaureate has the objectives of “developing students’ intercultural understanding” and “encouraging, through the study of texts and through social interaction, an awareness and appreciation of the different perspectives of people from other cultures” in English courses (IB, 2011). This study explored the cultural elements embedded in sample literary texts studied in IBDP Language B English courses, Fahrenheit 451 and The Catcher in the Rye. These literary texts were analyzed by using content analysis within the conceptual framework of the Standards for Foreign Language Learning (Appendix A) which was originally designed by US Department of Education and the National Endowment in 1996 and was adopted by Yuen (2011) by using another category from the study of Moran (as cited in Yuen, 2011). The results of the study showed that American and British cultures are frequently represented in sample texts in addition to appearance of some other cultures. Therefore, the results of this study suggest that there is a need to reevaluate the use of these literary texts considering the aims of the programme.